Annie was pushing Clary to tell Travis about what happened after he left. Clary never intends to tell Travis what happened after he left. She never intended to tell anyone, but Annie, in her Annie way, found out. Sometimes she catches Annie looking at her, and she knows that Annie is thinking about the day she came to Charlotte to visit Clary. The visit was a total surprise—for both of them, it turned out.
They pull up to the house, interrupting Clary’s wandering thoughts. Minnie turns to her as she always does, just as Clary is shifting the car into park. “Family is the most important thing,” Minnie says, her filmy eyes imploring Clary to agree with her. So Clary does. She nods vigorously and, as she does, tears fill her eyes. This time Minnie does something she never does. She reaches out to pat Clary lovingly on the shoulder.
“It’ll be all right, dear,” Minnie says. Then she reaches for the door handle and, while Clary collects herself, Minnie gets her own self out of the car. Clary is too caught up in the moment to think about this show of strength from Minnie. The old woman hasn’t opened her own door in months.
She jumps from the car and runs over to her charge, who is already making her way toward the little sidewalk that leads to her house. “Miss Minnie!” she exclaims. “You got out of the car by yourself!” She wonders if this is a turning point, if Miss Minnie is somehow getting better. Something good in the midst of all this bad. This is all Clary has ever wanted to do—with her doves, with Miss Minnie, even with what happened after Travis left—make other people’s lives better.
She is glad she came today. When she’d showed up to take Minnie out, Glynnis had met her at the door. “Oh, I already told Mama you weren’t coming today,” she said, glancing over her shoulder as if Minnie might catch her. “You’d asked off for the wedding starting today, and I figured, with everything going on, you’d just stay home.”
Clary had held up both her hands. “I can’t just sit at home and wait. I need to stay busy. Mama’s at home with a bunch of cops hanging out in our house. I don’t exactly want to be there.”
Glynnis had looked over her shoulder again, then nodded. “I can understand that.” She frowned, seemed worried. “I told Mama about Annie, and she got rightly upset. I probably shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t know she’d get so upset! I just got her calmed down. I don’t know if I should get her all riled up again. I think she even remembered Annie driving her.” Glynnis thought about this. “Or something.”
“Keeping to her routine might do her good,” Clary had offered. Glynnis had rolled her eyes around in her head as she thought that one over.
“Good point,” she finally said. And before Clary knew it, Miss Minnie had been in her car just like it was any other day.
But it isn’t any other day, and now their drive is over. She walks Miss Minnie into the house, settles her in her chair, turns the TV over to the History channel, and sets about preparing her dinner. She makes Minnie’s favorite, Kraft macaroni and cheese. It is comfort food, and Miss Minnie seems like she could use the comfort. They all could. Once Minnie is settled in, Clary says the same thing she always does.
“Glynnis will be by later to get you tucked in. You have a good night, okay?” But Minnie, absorbed in a show about World War II, doesn’t respond. That, too, is just like any other day.
Clary pulls up in front of her house to find a few police cars still there and a car that has claimed what seems a permanent spot. A snazzy SUV with Florida license plates that looks nothing like the sedate sedan a pastor should be driving. The vehicle has a car seat in the back. She walks quickly past, scolding herself for even glancing inside it. She does not need to see the evidence of Travis’s life now, his happy family life. She goes inside.
Tracy and Scott are there, sitting beside each other on the couch, talking intently. They seem to be spending all their time together. She wonders if that is right or wrong, then supposes that, at this point, it doesn’t matter. There are no rules for this type of thing. There are times in life when there simply aren’t, and it is up to us to write our own. This is what Clary did in Charlotte all those years ago. She wrote her own rules. She notes—but does not look directly at—Travis and his wife, standing in the dining area between the kitchen and the living area. There is food all over the table—platters brought by both good-intentioned and downright nosy people as soon as the news about Annie got out.
Clary’s stomach rumbles at the sight of the food, and she feels guilty for her hunger. She should not be eating when Annie is missing. She hopes that, wherever she is, Annie is eating, keeping up her strength. An unwelcome thought pushes its way into the front of her mind: Annie kidnapped by a psycho, like in that movie The Silence of the Lambs. Annie at the bottom of a hole, food being lowered in a basket. Annie scared and cold and alone.
But this is Ludlow, South Carolina. Things like that don’t happen here. There are no psychopaths. Of course, would she hear if there was a psycho roaming around? Is this the kind of thing decent people discuss in everyday conversation? Clary doesn’t think so.
“You’re worried about your cousin,” a voice says, which is a reasonable guess. She looks to her left and, standing beside her, with a plate of ham biscuits and deviled eggs in her hand, is Travis’s wife, Deandra. It doesn’t sound like a pastor’s wife’s name. Deandra Dove. It sounds like a porn star’s. How can anyone take her seriously with that name? Clary has watched her in Travis’s church videos online, joining Travis onstage for some announcement or another and, once, for a sermon on marriage. Clary had run from the computer, her hand over her mouth. She’d made it to the toilet before she threw up.
“Secrets make you sick,” Annie had said in that last conversation. Annie can be so self-righteous. Clary knows Annie doesn’t have any secrets, so it’s easy for her to be sanctimonious about people who do.
“Yes.” Clary forces a polite response to Travis’s wife. “Very worried.”
With her free hand, Deandra Dove reaches out to pat her shoulder, the same shoulder that Minnie patted earlier. “We are all praying. So hard,” she says. “For Annie and for your family.” Deandra’s eyes float over in Travis’s direction, then back to Clary. “Especially Travis,” she says.
Clary offers a weak thank-you in response, her voice thick in her throat. She does not want to be prayed for by Travis Dove’s wife or by Travis. She does not want to be patted by Travis Dove’s wife. She wishes Travis Dove and his wife would get in their SUV with the car seat in the back and drive back southward where they belong. But Travis is in his element, circling the room in pastor mode. She even saw him stop and pray with one of the cops, his baritone voice growing louder so that everyone in the room lowered their own voices and ducked, if not bowed, their heads.
Clary wanted to go over and shake him, scream, Who are you?
She recalls Travis at age sixteen, hanging over an overpass with a can of spray paint, painting their names across the side of the bridge as she shrieked at him to be careful. When he turned to look back at her, there was zeal on his face, the exhilaration of risk, of danger, as visible as the neon spray paint he’d used to proclaim his love for her to everyone who drove under that bridge the next morning. Later that day, Hal York had hauled him down to the station. “You dummies shouldn’t have used your real names,” Hal had scolded.
Travis, once her wild, fun instigator, has become an appropriate, measured responder. Instead of stirring up trouble, now he’s helping people through it. She guesses this is to be admired, but there is something in her that can only hate it.
Deandra Dove sticks out her hand. “I’m Deandra, by the way,” she says. “Travis’s wife,” she adds, as if Clary needs that explanation.
She wants to say, I’m Clary. Travis’s ex. But instead she merely grips the woman’s hand in what passes for a handshake. Clary is the first to let go, thinking as she does, This is the hand that touches Travis now. She resists the urge to wipe her palm on her shorts and instead points to the plate of food. “Any good?” she a
sks, just to be polite, to prove that, no matter what Travis or anyone else has told Deandra, Clary has class. Hell, she was in a country club just this morning.
“Yes,” she says, and emits a little giggle as she rests her hand on her stomach. “I’ve just been feeling so bad I had to make myself eat something. They call it morning sickness, but it’s not just mornings for me.”
“You’re—you’re—” Clary swallows around her tongue, grown thick in her mouth. “Pregnant?” She thinks of the car seat in the back of the SUV. They already have a baby. “Again?” she asks.
Deandra smiles like the pregnant cat that ate the sympathy food at a missing bride’s family’s house while her husband’s pitiful ex looked on. “Well, we didn’t intend on having them so close together, but it just . . . happened.”
That little-girl giggle punctuates her words again. She sounds silly, like a person who can’t be trusted with adult things. Why are you here? Clary wants to ask this woman child. Why are you in my home while my cousin is missing? She looks across the room, hoping to make eye contact with her mother, to make an excuse to excuse herself, but all she sees is Travis, warily watching them both. Don’t worry, honey, she thinks, I will not taint her. I will not tell her what you used to be like.
“Well,” Clary says, “congratulations.” She shifts her purse on her shoulder, making it look like it has suddenly grown heavy, like she must go put it away right this very minute. “I better go set this down and get something to eat myself.” Before Deandra can respond, she starts to walk away, then remembers her manners and turns back. “Nice to meet you,” she adds.
Deandra nods and gives her a smile, the same smile she uses onstage with Travis. Clary looks up to see if Travis is still watching them, if he still looks worried. She hopes that he sees that smile on his wife’s face and knows that she hasn’t done what he expected her to do. Their eyes meet, and she sees him tilt his chin down slightly, the barest acknowledgment. Above his head, a bright light suddenly shines, and for the briefest moment, she thinks that perhaps Travis’s transformation is complete, that he has actually begun to emit light like a celestial being.
But before the thought can even fully form, she realizes it is not Travis who is shining; it is something shining through the window behind him, something from the front yard. She moves forward to investigate the source of the light, her gaze fixed just past him. She sees him turn to find out what she is looking at. And so, together, they are the first ones to spot the television reporter on the lawn, the large lights erected for a live broadcast: BRIDE MISSING: NEWS AT ELEVEN.
Laurel
When her phone rings, it is a welcome distraction. For a moment, she thinks that maybe it is Damon, calling to say he is sorry about this morning. But it’s not Damon. It is Scott, the groom, asking her to come to Faye’s, because he’d like to give her a statement.
“I’ve had some other news people get in contact with me,” he says, then exhales loudly into the phone, weary of all this. “But Damon Collins says I should give you an exclusive.”
An exclusive. The words make her heart pick up speed. Of course she goes.
When she arrives, Scott is nowhere to be seen. She stands just inside the doorway, feeling like she’s snuck into a party she wasn’t invited to, until Tracy bustles over and pulls her to a corner. “Just hang out for a bit,” Tracy says, looking very pleased to be in the know. “He does want to talk to you.”
Laurel nods obediently, all the while wondering why Tracy is Scott’s spokesperson now. She wonders if he has really said this or if Tracy is making it up.
Tracy points toward a hall off the main room where they are standing and rolls her eyes. “The cops have him sequestered back there, asking a million questions. Again. I told him it might be time to think about getting a lawyer.” She glances backward, as if willing the closed door to open and Scott to emerge.
Still watching the door, Tracy adds, “I mean, if he’s a suspect, he shouldn’t be talking to them without an attorney. Everyone knows that. I’m trying to help him think through all this, help him . . . navigate these uncharted waters.” She shrugs and makes eye contact with Laurel again. “He didn’t have anything to do with Annie’s disappearance, of course,” she adds with certainty.
She gives Laurel a pinched smile and moves away, leaving Laurel to stand alone awkwardly, wondering how Tracy is so sure Scott didn’t have anything to do with it. It doesn’t seem that anyone knows anything for certain in this case. Laurel can see that Tracy feels superior to her because she is in the know, deigning to allow Laurel into the situation, the purveyor of valuable information. Tracy, who would barely speak in high school, always nipping at Annie’s heels, obviously grateful to be designated Annie’s best friend. Now she seems just as grateful to be designated Scott’s confidante. Laurel wouldn’t be surprised if Tracy was nursing a little crush on Annie’s fiancé.
She watches Tracy make small talk with a stranger and waits for something to happen. Either Scott will emerge from the bedroom so they can finally talk, or Faye will throw Laurel out. She probably would’ve already if not for the arrival of one of her best customers, there to offer her support. Laurel has seen Faye’s eyes dart over to her several times, a worried look on her face. It is, she fears, only a matter of time before Faye breaks away from her conversation and heads her way with that set in her jaw that Laurel has come to recognize—the one that means Faye is not happy and is about to do something about it. She saw it this morning at the country club. Was it just this morning? It already seems like days ago.
Laurel taps a nearby cop on the shoulder in the middle of his bite of ham biscuit. He begins to chew faster, giving her a look in the meantime that says, Yeah?
“Do you by chance know where the restroom is?” she asks, desperate to find a place to hide out while she waits on Scott, if for no other reason than to stay out of Faye’s sight.
The cop swallows and shrugs, gives her a grin. “I have no idea,” he says.
“Okay,” she responds, feeling every bit as stupid as he must think she is. She starts to walk away, but his voice stops her.
“Hey, aren’t you Laurel Haines? We went to high school together. I didn’t know you were back in town.” He grins and leans against the wall, settling in for a catch-up.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I need to find the restroom.” She scoots away quickly, before he can see the two spots of color that have risen on her cheeks. The last thing she wants to do is stand in Faye’s living room and reminisce about high school. She tries the first door she comes to, anxious to slip away.
The door reveals what must be Clary’s bedroom. Feeling guilty for breaching her privacy, she quickly shuts the door. But not before she registers that Clary’s room is a juxtaposition of old and new, of past and present. Laurel’s room at her parents’ home is much the same: a ratty stuffed bunny sits beside an over-the-counter sleep aid, makeup brushes hunker in a clay pot formed by ten-year-old hands. The girl she was coexists with the woman she has become.
She moves on before Clary spies her loitering outside her bedroom and yells at her for snooping. Clary was always a wild child, unpredictable and unafraid. Though Laurel has seen her only briefly since she’s been back, she knows that Clary now cares for Laurel’s grandmother in the afternoons. That she raises doves and releases them at weddings and funerals. Far from the wild, bohemian life Laurel would’ve expected. Clary does not seem to be the same person she was back then. But, then again, none of them is.
The second door she tries is the right one. She slips inside the bathroom and closes the door, standing in the quiet darkness with a sigh of relief before she flips on the light. She sees a purple toothbrush in a little holder, a pump bottle of face cleanser beside it, a smudge of toothpaste on the counter that she resists the urge to wipe away.
She looks up at her face in the mirror, trying to imagine Annie standing in this very same spot. This was her bathroom, too, for her whole life and another few days at least. A
young Annie got ready for dates and rehearsed breakup speeches and practiced kissing in this mirror. Laurel puckers her lips, and as she does, the annoying image of Damon leaning so close to her at the country club enters her brain. She shakes her head, and the image disappears.
She stands there for a few minutes longer, then flushes the toilet to make her trip seem plausible, just in case anyone is listening. She waits until the toilet has completely stopped running to buy more time before leaving the safe haven of the bathroom. Only when the pipes stop running does she hear the ruckus outside.
She flings open the bathroom door and steps out into the hallway. From her vantage point, she can see that everyone in the living area has sort of clumped together, all their eyes looking in the same direction, all their mouths agape, even the cops’. Something is happening. She hears someone yelling, but from a distance, and realizes the front door to the house must be open and the person yelling is outside.
It is nearly full dark, yet there is light shining through the big window at the front of the house, light that reflects on surprised faces. She sees Scott and Tracy, standing together. She sees Travis Dove and his wife, too. She moves toward the light and the shouting, slipping into a thin spot between one of the church ladies who brought food and the customer of Faye’s. She silently watches as Faye gesticulates and screams at a television crew gathered on her lawn. She points at the street and then at the camera, and, though they can’t hear every word, Laurel gets the gist: Faye wants them to leave.
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